This series of museum labels are designed for general use in your museum or institution to highlight existing connections to nanoscale science, engineering, or technology. NISE Net partners are already coming up with creative ways to use these labels to showcase nano. For example, you can make a scavenger hunt or special tour to encourage visitors to find all the connections! Additional templates (.doc and .indd) are also provided so that you can create your own signage and content.

“Kitchen Chemistry” is a live stage presentation about recognizing and exploring the science that we practice every day in our very own homes. We take a look at the chemistry behind a seemingly simple bowl of spaghetti – from boiling water, to the behavior of starches and lubricants both on the macro- and nanoscale, to the nanosensors that determine our perception of taste and smell; how cooking is a complex chemistry, and how we are complex in the ways we experience our food. The presentation consists of multiple demonstrations, many including audience participation.

"Exploring Fabrication - Gummy Capsules" lets visitors make self-assembled polymer spheres. They learn that self-assembly is a process by which molecules and cells form themselves into functional structures, and that self-assembly is used to make nanocapsules that can deliver medication.

Presenter puts Mentos candy into soda to create a soda fountain. This is a dramatic demonstration of the effects of surface area.

This demonstration isn’t heavily focused on nanotechnology,but can be a spectacular finale that you add on to other nano demos like Intro to Nano or Surface Area. (It’s probably best as a substitution for Alka-Seltzer, rather than being performed with it.)
It’s also just a crowd pleasing demo that briefly mentions nano.

The "Sweet Self-Assembly" program focuses on the creation of macrocapsules using self-assembly techniques. Participants make edible macrocapsules using techniques similar to those being used in laboratories to make nanocapsules or “smart drugs”.